With the advent of digital cameras a new generation fo photographers have hit the internet. Myself included.

After purchasing my first digital camera, I was fortunate to be traveling in our RV and seeing some really beautiful sights. Soon I had amassed a ton of photos, some good, some fair, some exceptionally lucky shots.

I started making PDF's with my photos and sending them to friends and family to try and share what we were experiencing on the road.

My daughter asked me if one of her friends could use one of my photos for her desktop background, and I was very surprised at the idea and said "Of course!".

SInce you are not able to copy an image from a PDF file, I needed to send the file directly to her, which I gladly did.

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By now, I had well over 1,000 photos sitting in files on my computer.

After sending the image off for my daughter's friend, I started experimenting with my photos as desktop backgrounds. Up until then I didn't even know I could change the image on my background!

Then I decided to take it a step further, and learned how to set up my screensaver using my images.

Finally, I found a use for my photos!

The next logical step for me was to set up a website where I could post my images for anyone to use for their desktop background, or to use the images to create their own screensaver.

I am not a professional photographer, but I had three things going for me. I had an excellent camera, the photo opportunities were endless, and I am a fairly good editor and can usually bring out the best in a photo.

My family thought I was crazy to give my photos away, especially my husband.

But that was what I wanted to do. There are millions of photos online for people to choose from, I just wanted to throw mine into the mix because I was very proud of them, and was hoping someone else might enjoy them too.

Building a website was a real challenge. I knew what I wanted it to do and look like, but I had very little skill or knowledge of how to do it. Sometimes I would get so frustrated and want to quit, thinking it was a really dumb idea to begin with. Who would care about seeing my photos?

I was so excited when Google first picked my site up and you could actually find my site through a search engine. And people were actually coming to my site! People from all around the world!

I could never tell if they were downloading any of my photos, or even if they liked them, as I seldom received any comments or communication from my visitors. The only thing I could tell was that some had bookmarked my site, which meant they would come back again maybe.

I guess at this point, my site has evolved from 7 attempts at creating what I envisioned in my heart. I think for the moment I am very happy with my site.

After creating my site, I started looking around at other photo sites. Some are okay, others are exceptional with beautiful photography.

Then I started discovering the photo clubs, if you will, where you can upload your images to a gallery to share with others. I joined a few of these, and posted some of my favorite images on these sites too.

Since then, I have expanded my personal collection of photos to include images I have picked up along the way from other photographers. They are my personal collection, I do not share them on my site as I worry about infringing on other's work by offering it at my site.

I have however, added a section on my website for guest galleries, for friends to post their images on my site to share with the world.

The great thing about building your own collection is the internet is such a fluid changing medium, one day a site may be up, the next day it is gone. When you find an image you really like and save it, it is possible you may have a gem that will never be found again!

I have several favorite photo sites that I frequently visit looking for new photos for my personal collection.

Below is a list of a few of them. If you are interested in starting your own collection it is a fun and rewarding hobby. It is also very cheap, all it takes is your time, and the time spent looking through photos can be very inspiring and uplifting, so it is really a great way to spend some leisure time.

Once you have collected a number of photos, arrange them in files and create slideshows for yourself to enjoy. You can use them as your screensaver so when your computer is idle you are hopefully inspired by your art collection.

You can also just take a break from the work, stress, and boredom that sometimes hits you while spending too much time at a computer, and turn on one of your slideshows and sit back and relax while enjoying those special images you have gathered.

Screensavers are not really necessary for newer model computers I am told, but they can still be a pleasure to watch. Especially if they are photos that you have taken, or ones you have collected from other free photo sites like mine.

To create a slideshow screensaver on a PC, the steps are simple.

1. Click on your start button and select My Pictures

2. Open My Pictures, if there are any files already there remove them. You can move them to a file somewhere else on your desktop. If you need to, create a file on your desktop that you can move them to.

3. Once you’re My Pictures folder is empty, drag and drop your screensaver file into the folder, and close.

4. Go back to your start button, and click on Control Panel.

5. In Control Panel chose “Appearance and Themes”

6. Pick the task “Choose a Screensaver”

7. On the Display Properties window, select the “screensaver” tab located at the top.

8. Halfway down the screen is a dropdown box. Click on it to bring up the options, and choose My Pictures Slideshow”

9. Hit “apply” in the lower right hand corner.

10. Go back to the middle section of the screen, and click on settings. Here the choices are yours to make. You can choose the size, how often the images change, whether the title is displayed, etc. One option I always use is the “use transition effect between pictures”.

11. You can preview how it will look, if you like it, hit save, or go back to options and play around with the settings until it is how you want it to appear. Then save.